Odds'n'Sods: 2 May 2014

Welcome to your Friday night geek/nerd link frenzy.

• Japan's S.H. Figuarts are giving the market very advanced notice of a new Kikaider figure coming out in 2015. I don't actually have a clue who Kikaider is, but the figure looks very funky. On aesthetics alone it might be worth purchasing. (link)
• An interesting piece by Comics Alliance's Rachel Edidin about how Game of Thrones adaptations - both the TV series and the comic book - are using rape as a narrative tool when they very probably shouldn't be. (link)
• Don Hertzfeldt - who's one of my absolute favourite animation directors in the whole world - now has a graphic novel out. It looks odd, and fab. Probably also oddly fab. (link)
• Two new script writers for Doctor Who were announced this week. While I'm happy for them, and it sounds like they're great people for the job, I do wish the BBC would occasionally hire some women to write for the series. (link)
• Ever wonder what the script looks like for an episode of WWE Raw? Now you can find out by following this link. (link)

Game of Thrones: "The Ghost of Harrenhal"

One of the things I do like about Game of Thrones is that they do keep things moving. Not necessarily quickly, but you're pretty much guaranteed a major progression of the narrative in each episode. Within minutes of this episode starting King Renly Baratheon is dead, murdered by Melisandre's terrifying shadow monster. Falsely assumed to be Renly's murderer, Brienne is forced to flee in the company of Catelyn Stark. I have fallen utterly in love with Brienne: she's an extremely strong, nuanced, awkward character, and Gwendoline Christie plays her extremely well. This Stormlands sequence neatly cuts out one of the claimants to the Iron Throne, with older brother Stannis assuming control of Renly's army.

Back at King's Landing, Tyrion uncovers one of his sister's secret plans to defend the city from Stannis' army: eight thousand pots of "wildfire" to be catapulted onto the Baratheon forces. These scenes between Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and Bronn (Jerome Flynn) are the absolute highlights of the series this season: wry, funny, cutting and just all-round entertaining. This episode's scenes are no different. (There's also a cameo for George R. R. Martin's pal Roy Dotrice, who previously acted in Martin's ace 1980s TV drama Beauty and the Beast.)

Game of Thrones: "Garden of Bones"

I think pretty much anything else about "Garden of Bones" falls by the wayside in comparison to the jawdropping scene of Melisandre (Carice van Houten) giving birth to an enormous terrifying smoke monster. Game of Thrones keeps its fantastical elements quite close to its chest. We've seen white walkers twice, and of course Daenerys now has her dragons, but all told it's pretty low on fantasy. That kind of gets blown out of the water here, and by holding back so much on the supernatural for the series' first 14 episodes the production team manage to make a phenomenal impact here.

As always, let's go from plot thread to plot thread to see how the second season fares in its fourth week.

Game of Thrones: "What is Dead May Never Die"

Game of Thrones has the best opening title sequence of the 21st century.

I am a big fan of opening titles: they're a crucial part of any television series in my opinion, because they give the viewer a little pause (30 seconds, or 60) to forget their day-to-day thoughts and concerns and settle into the fictional world of the TV drama. The opening titles also set expectations for the episode to come. A properly designed set of credits will let the viewer know the genre, the pace, the aesthetic and the emotional tone of what's to follow.

The credits to Game of Thrones achieve all of that, but they also do one other crucial thing: they establish geography. While the clockwork visuals nicely echo the 'game' motif of the series, they also show the viewer where each storyline of the episode is set, and where those storylines are geographically located in relation to one another. In a series where some storylines are set on different continents, and in which they regularly fail to link up in any narrative way, this kind of information is crucial.

So, in week three of the second season, what are the various storylines up to?

Game of Thrones: "The Night Lands"

I really don't think there's an actor on American television right now who's better than Peter Dinklage. He gives Tyrion Lannister such a tremendous amount of humour, likeability and depth. It's looking like, for his scenes at least, Game of Thrones Season 2 is going to be a joy to watch. Here he goes about securing his position as King's Hand, deftly removing the captain of the guard to install a new one likely to be more loyal. I also love how, despite their evil deeds and incestuous relationship, he clearly retains much affection for his siblings.

This is a series with a bit of a body count to it, and I have deliberately avoided spoiling myself by reading ahead or going through the books. I really hope Tyrion survives for a very, very long time - he is absolutely this cast's greatest asset.

So what else happens in this episode?

Game of Thrones: "The North Remembers"

Most TV dramas I watch once they're released on home video. Commercials in broadcast television annoy me too much (particularly Australian TV's habit of editing two minutes from American dramas to squeeze in extra advertisements), and generally speaking I'd rather wait and pay money to a show's producers than pirate my TV via torrents. As a result I'm often quite behind on my television. A case in point: HBO's marvellous epic Game of Thrones. Everybody else is gearing up for the Season 3 premiere at the end of the month, while I am only now wading my way through Season 2 on Blu-ray.

Diving into Season 2 of Game of Thrones a year after watching Season 1 is very much a case of running to catch up. This show's cast is massive, sprawling across an entire fictional continent and in many cases almost entirely unrelated to one another. A lot of my time was spent straining to remember which supporting character was which, what their agendas were, and who all the new people were too.

As with all of my TV reviews, the section above the cut may provide a brief general synopsis of the episode while anything below the cut may spoil significant portions of the episode.